WEC 11/18 Las Vegas, Nevada
By Zach Arnold | November 18, 2009
Venue: The Pearl at The Palms (9 PM EST)
TV: Versus
Dark matches
- Bantamweights (135 pounds): Seth Dikun vs. Frank Gomez
- Lightweights (155 pounds): Ricardo Lamas vs. James Krause
- Bantamweights (135 pounds): Antonio Banuelos vs. Kenji Osawa
- Featherweights (145 pounds): Cub Swanson vs. John Franchi
- Featherweights (145 pounds): Diego Nunes vs. LC Davis
- Lightweights (155 pounds): Alex Karalexis vs. Kamal Shalorus
Main card
- Lightweights (155 pounds): Danny Castillo vs. Shane Roller
- Lightweights (155 pounds): “Razor” Rob McCullough vs. Karen Darabedyan
- Featherweights (145 pounds): Manny Gamburyan vs. Leonard Garcia
- WEC Featherweight title match (145 pounds): Mike Brown vs. Jose Aldo
Topics: Media, MMA, WEC, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 105 does average in the cable ratings
By Zach Arnold | November 18, 2009
Remember those reported predictions last week by Spike TV management claiming that they thought they could draw 5 million viewers for Randy Couture vs. Brandon Vera? I thought it was non-sense, too, and I was wondering why the ratings information for this show weren’t released sooner. If the ratings had been hot, you would have heard about it by Monday night or Tuesday morning.
Instead, it’s Wednesday and you have to dig around to find them.
The UFC 105 show did a 1.9 rating, which is a disappointment. They are pushing they beat CBS in the younger demos but fell short overall.
At MMA Memories last week, one of the questions I asked is whether or not the public cares about Randy Couture as passionately as they once did. It’s hard to put all the blame on Couture here — Vera isn’t a compelling opponent and it was hard to take the idea of Mike Swick vs. Dan Hardy as a #1 contender’s match seriously. That said, when you beat your chests going into the show and say you’re going to do better than Strikeforce on CBS, well…
Compare how UFC 105 did versus the minute-by-minute ratings for the Strikeforce show. Even though UFC 104 (Cain Velasquez vs. Ben Rothwell, Machida vs. Shogun) did reportedly better than expected PPV buys, the company right now is in a cold pattern since UFC 100 last July in Vegas.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 28 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Reports: Brock Lesnar is back home recovering after surgery
By Zach Arnold | November 17, 2009
Lesnar’s chiropractor told the Associated Press that the big man is back home in Minnesota. Dana White says he is planning on an interim title fight for the Heavyweight division.
Let’s hope it is better than Randy Couture vs. Mark Coleman in February. On their newsticker tonight, ESPN ran with the story saying that the fight would be the first bout featuring two UFC Hall of Famers fighting each other.
In other UFC-related news, they reportedly have banned Clinch and RVCA as sponsors (more from Josh Gross). Clinch is the clothing line that Dan Henderson backs. RVCA is a sponsor of Fedor and BJ Penn and Vitor Belfort.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 62 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Shukan Playboy: Sengoku NYE production was going to cost too much money
By Zach Arnold | November 17, 2009
Here is what the publication is claiming: The event at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo featuring Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Satoshi Ishii was becoming a big-budget show and the company also reportedly needed money to purchase the television time for the event to air on January 3rd on TV Tokyo. (The history of TV-Tokyo as a pay-to-play network is well known. You can buy time on the network, but don’t expect them to finance a big-budget operation like Fuji TV or Tokyo Broadcasting System). When the financial numbers were thrown around for what it would cost to produce the show, Playboy says that Sengoku’s main sponsor Don Quijote (ran by Mr. Yasuda, a big supporter of fighters) balked at the price tag and pulled their support. With no big sponsor to foot the bill, Sengoku’s NYE show was doomed and they had to cut their losses and work with K-1.
I’ll have a more detailed article on this situation later this week.
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Sengoku, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Public comments on Brock Lesnar’s health condition; WCCO TV says Lesnar has severe case of diverticulitis; Associated Press says Lesnar to be released from hospital shortly
By Zach Arnold | November 16, 2009
With this report from TMZ today stating that Lesnar has “some sort of intestinal disorder,” let’s take a look at comments that Dave Meltzer made on late Sunday night on his radio show.
DAVE MELTZER: “Lesnar has um three or four things wrong with him, two of which are known and one or two of which aren’t known and um you know I think that Dana White today was going to…”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Meaning known by UFC?”
DAVE MELTZER: “And by him, yeah,”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Oh, okay, so he’s got two things even he doesn’t know what’s wrong.”
DAVE MELTZER: “At least.”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “That’s not good.”
DAVE MELTZER: “There’s a lot, OK, the thing is um he had Mono, he trained on Mono and that probably is what’s causing all these other problems is that he trained while he was on Mono when he supposed to rest because he had a fight coming up and he refused to admit that he was tired even though he was really tired and then he finally you know so he went up to Canada, he collapsed in Canada early last week, um, and um was hospitalized and I think he was moved to a hospital in North Dakota where he at least was as of yesterday and um Dana White was going to fly there to get him to a better facility where they could find out more what’s wrong with him because there’s whatever the new thing is that’s wrong with him there’s also other things wrong with him that the new thing doesn’t cover, he’s in really rough shape and um they need to get him and get him diagnosed and get him back healthy and it’s uh you know he’s very very depressed from what I understand.”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Well I can imagine.”
DAVE MELTZER: “Yeah, because um him being sick and him being weak does not go well together and him not fighting doesn’t well together either, you know I think he was very much looking forward to you know I mean he wanted to fight three times this year and he ended up fighting once and um next year who knows, I mean you know you know there’s nothing on the schedule as far as like him fighting again, I mean it’s just you know I’m presuming they’re going to do an interim championship and uh although who they’ll do with it, I don’t know because now with Carwin having knee surgery (he didn’t) that um delays everything as well so it’s they’re just screwed but they’ll you know I don’t know how they’re going to get out of this one but you know I guess they will you know they’re working on some off beat ideas I guess but I don’t know if they’re going to get any of them ready for January 2nd.”
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BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Now the Lesnar thing, I mean I just uh I mean that was actually what a lot of people were thinking was that he had Mono and then he just kept trying to train on it and then got a complication and I don’t know as far as the other two things you know I don’t know maybe took a bunch of medication to try and ease the pain or whatever and then screwed something else up and just…”
DAVE MELTZER: “There could be any of a million reasons.”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Snowball effect.”
DAVE MELTZER: “Probably, you know, probably just um probably just the Mono taking its effect with you know once one thing goes wrong with you it’s pretty easy for more things to go wrong with you so I think that’s kind of like what happened there.”
WCCO, a local news station in the Minneapolis area, says that Lesnar is suffering from diverticiulitis:
A source told WCCO that Lesnar has a severe case of diverticulitis, a disease where small pouches form in the digestive system.
The Associated Press claims that Lesnar is in the Bismarck, North Dakota area at a local hospital (stable condition) and that White is encouraging him to go to the Mayo Clinic.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
What’s the motive behind Dana White’s public announcements on Brock Lesnar’s health?
By Zach Arnold | November 16, 2009
That seems to be the question everyone is asking right now, which of course is leading to all sorts of conspiracy theories. “Does Brock have Lyme disease?” “Does he have health problems related to his pro-wrestling days?” “Why is he in the hospital?” “Is this all a media frenzy in hopes of creating babyface heat for Lesnar?” And on and on and on it goes. Hell, ESPN ran with White’s health proclamations about Brock on on their news ticket and at one point the LA Times story about White’s comments were the most-viewed out of anything in the paper’s online sports section — and that’s on a weekend where USC got crushed by Stanford on Saturday at the Coliseum.
No matter how long Lesnar is out of action, the overall depth that UFC once had is suddenly showing strain. The calls to bring in the WEC fighters to work UFC shows will grow louder and louder (as they should). Mike Brown vs. Jose Aldo should be at this weekend’s UFC event — instead, it’s on a Wednesday show most people won’t know is on and will probably lose in the ratings to Central Michigan (Dan LeFevour mania, brother) vs. Ball State on ESPN2 (college football).
Then there’s the prospect of booking Chuck Liddell for the January 2nd show that has… Rashad Evans vs. Thiago Silva and no Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira/Cain Velasquez match-up because Nogueira has a staph infection. Shane Carwin may tempted in fighting Velasquez for an interim title, but if he loses to Cain he will likely never get that title match against Brock. However, Carwin needs to fight and make some money. He’s in a catch 22 here. Fortunately, it sounds like Carwin won’t fight Velasquez due to a grade two MCL strain.
Think Dan Henderson enjoys the leverage he has right now at the bargaining table? If UFC can’t sign Henderson soon, they’re looking at Chael Sonnen vs. Nathan Marquardt. Yeah. At least Michael Bisping is on the comeback trail. Yushin Okami is hanging out with IWGP champion Shinsuke Nakamura at Samurai TV. Ahh… flashbacks to Alexey Ignashov…
Then there’s Rampage, who’s off in movie-land and who wants what he thinks is a fair amount of money to fight Evans in the UFC in ‘010.
As for the Welterweight division, we’re going to see mega-star Georges St. Pierre against a Top 20 WW in Dan Hardy, who looked… well… OK against Mike Swick on Saturday night in Manchester. Jon Fitch continues to draw the short end of the stick due to bad luck and a lack of opponents. Would a new season of TUF with GSP and Hardy as coaches help create new prospects?
Anderson Silva is missing in action and is unpredictable as far as business manueverings are concerned. It’s possible that if things really got desperate for UFC that they could book Randy Couture for the January 2nd event.
Tito vs. Forrest II will pop a nice buyrate, probably 450,000ish, and even though Forrest is a -160 favorite go into the fight there’s a good shot that Tito can sneak out a win here and hopefully add some life to future UFC PPV events.
Simply put, the UFC right now is in desperate need of making new stars fast, quick, and in a hurry. Part of it is their fault, but part of it is also the fault of the fighters they put into make-or-break positions who end up breaking (like Brandon Vera).
And part of it is the health of one larger-than-life individual who right now has management worried that he’s not coming back to the cage any time soon to help them pop a couple of big PPV buy rates.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 67 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 11/14 Manchester, England
By Zach Arnold | November 14, 2009
Venue: Manchester Evening News Arena
TV: Spike TV (delayed broadcast)
Dark matches
- Lightweights (155 pounds): Andre Winner vs. Rolando Delgado
- Light Heavyweights (205 pounds): Alexander Gustafsson vs. Jared Hamman
- Lightweights (155 pounds): Paul Kelly vs. Dennis Siver
- Welterweights (170 pounds): Nick Osipczak vs. Matthew Riddle
- Lightweights (155 pounds): Terry Etim vs. Shannon Gugerty
- Welterweights (170 pounds): Paul Taylor vs. John Hathaway
Main card
- Lightweights (155 pounds): Ross Pearson vs. Aaron Riley
- Welterweights (170 pounds): James Wilks vs. Matt Brown
- Middleweights (185 pounds): Michael Bisping vs. Denis Kang
- Welterweights (170 pounds): Mike Swick vs. Dan Hardy
- Light Heavyweights (205 pounds): Randy Couture vs. Brandon Vera
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 95 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The ghost of Seiya Kawamata: Sengoku waves white flag for NYE, will work with K-1 on NYE
By Zach Arnold | November 12, 2009
Sengoku was supposed to have a New Year’s show at Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo with Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Satoshi Ishii. Ariake Colosseum is a nice mid-sized building, around 10,000 seats, but it’s not even Yokohama Arena in the grand scheme of business. Therefore, Yoshida vs. Ishii in a building of that size should have been a sell-out. So why did the promotion wave the white flag and fold up its tent in order to co-promote an event with K-1 at Saitama Super Arena? Money.
Business has sucked horribly at the Sengoku shows. They can’t draw and the attempted roll-out of Ishii by both World Victory Road and by Ishii’s management may go down in the history books as the worst handling of a major-league rookie superstar prospect we’ve seen to date in MMA. Heavy words, yes, but a pretty accurate statement in my opinion.
There are already comparisons being thrown about of Sengoku and K-1 working together as somehow being similar to PRIDE & K-1, which is ironic given what we know about PRIDE’s collapse and who was an admitted yakuza fixer during that time — one Seiya Kawamata, the man whose interviews with Shukan Gendai led to trouble.
With K-1 & Sengoku now working together on NYE, Sadaharu Tanigawa says we’re getting a 19-match card with Sakuraba, Tamura, Aoki, and a slew of fighters.
The question now for Sengoku is just how crippled the promotion is and if it will eventually die off. At this point, it’s a relatively useless shell organization with K-1 having all the power and none of the liabilities that World Victory Road has to pay for. It’s like what Pancrase was a few years ago to PRIDE for the Bushido shows.
Whether Kawamata is still involved in the business as a fixer is unknown, but Kazuyoshi Ishii has always conquered his rivals and absorbed them. Would be no surprise at all if Kawamata is still around.
We know Kazuyoshi Ishii loves interpromotional feuds and likes to push rivalries amongst factions. It’s his playbook, practically speaking. With Sengoku, he has a powerless ‘ally’ he can control and essentially tinker with as far as matchmaking goes. Sengoku is losing money promoting their own shows and as long as it’s not K-1 money, they could care less because ultimately Ishii controls the pipeline for Japanese TV in the fight business over there and you only get on if you work with him.
We’ve had various factions feud or co-promote with K-1 over the years (PRIDE, Yarennoka, now Sengoku) and in the end K-1 managed to control the outcome they wanted. The big question is whether or not Kazuyoshi Ishii gives Satoshi Ishii a big push. It’s a touchy situation if K-1 can’t have its tentacles into Ishii contractually-speaking in the long-run. On the flip side, K-1 has to be pretty confident that even if they do push Ishii on their TV platform that Sengoku will continue to lose money on their shows, so why should they care? Eventually K-1 will grab any of the Sengoku fighters they want.
Added comment (11/14): This post was translated by a Japanese site with the tagline of “the always pessimistic Zach Arnold.” Made me laugh. Not sure if I was exactly pessimistic here at all, just telling it like it is with the way K-1 does business and seemingly wins.
Topics: Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, Sengoku, Zach Arnold | 16 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Three burning questions heading into UFC 105
By Zach Arnold | November 12, 2009
You’ll have to read the 3,000 word article to know what they are, though they are pretty easy to come up with on your own.
Odds for the main fights coming up on Saturday’s card:
Brandon Vera (-110) vs. Randy Couture (-120)
Michael Bisping (-105) vs. Denis Kang (-125)
Dan Hardy (+190) vs. Mike Swick (-240)
James Wilks (+138) vs. Matt Brown (-168)
Ross Pearson (+165) vs. Aaron Riley (-205)
Paul Taylor (+210) vs. John Hathaway (-260)
Shannon Gugerty (+265) vs. Terry Etim (-325)
Nick Osipczak (+265) vs. Matt Riddle (-325)
Dennis Siver (+260) vs. Paul Kelly (-320)
Alexander Gustafsson (+110) vs. Jared Hamman (-140)
Rolando Delgado (+265) vs. Andre Winner (-325)
I’m not as interested in this card on Saturday as I am for the WEC show on 11/18.
One of the questions I have going into UFC 105 is addressed in a column by Mike Coughlin:
The UFC does a lot of things right, but the treatment of Randy Couture has been disappointing. His last fight – a competitive 15 minute war with one of the greatest heavyweights of all time in Rodrigo Nogueira – was relegated to being the main-event of the 2nd PPV of August. As such, while a million people paid to watch Anderson Silva fight, less than half that number paid to see Randy compete. That shouldn’t be the case. One of the sport’s most beloved figures, and one of ALL sports’ most inspirational stories, shouldn’t be a PPV afterthought. I don’t care how many shows the UFC wanted to run, and how the schedule happened to fall: Randy deserved better.
Now, Couture is back, fighting Brandon Vera. On Spike TV. For free. A week before a PPV from Las Vegas is headlined by a guy he beat and a guy he trains. This isn’t right. It doesn’t matter how desensitized we are to Couture’s story, we won’t be someday. His final fights – and eventually we have to be witnessing his final fights, right? – should be meticulously catalogued for all time. Every single step he takes, every day of practice, should be recorded so that future generations can relive what we’re all taking for granted.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 22 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The limitations of the CBS/Showtime model for Strikeforce
By Zach Arnold | November 9, 2009
Over at the Heavy web site, Jonathan Snowden has an interview posted with Scott Coker after Saturday’s night show in Chicago. For all intents and purposes, I thought Coker did a good job with the show. Obviously the scheduling situation with the Mark Miller fight being canceled at the last minute on the undercard is a bad move on their part, but it’s the same type of thing that happened to Jay Hieron on the August show where he wasn’t on TV and ended up losing sponsorship money. Does the heat go on Strikeforce or should it go on CBS & Showtime? Probably the latter.
I wrote an article for MMA Memories talking about the problems that Strikeforce faces by being under the CBS/Showtime business model. There was a reason last week why I transcribed the interview Kelly Kahl did with Fanhouse. He talks a big game in terms of what CBS has done for Strikeforce in terms of promotion and either he’s a total spinner or he’s not looking at the ways to promote Strikeforce from multiple angles. Having 10-seconds ads featuring Choi Hong-Man on top of Fedor is not the way to promote him. I don’t care if you ‘flood the zone’ on NFL or SEC football games or not, that’s not effective advertising. When the whole goal is to try to promote new stars, CBS did the bare minimum on Saturday – no interviews from the fighters, a poor ad campaign leading up to the event, and no sense of either CBS or Showtime doing episodic programming with Strikeforce in the future.
If you want to be event-driven only in terms of promotion, that’s fine, UFC is that way, but Spike TV invests countless hours each week to promote the brand. Roger Goodell likes to say that he protects “the shield” (the NFL logo)… well, Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta do a pretty good job of protecting the UFC brand. Scott Coker, at this point, finds himself at the mercy of what Showtime and CBS want to do. Sure, Kelly Kahl and company can say that Scott is the head matchmaker and that they defer to him on many decisions, but ultimately Showtime and CBS runs the show and not Strikeforce. As the ratings information comes in and we see how things play out both politically and in a business sense, you get the feeling that UFC made the right decision in not immediately giving up control in exchange for exposure on CBS.
Note in the MMA Memories article what Kahl says about the idea of working with UFC in the future.
As for Jake Shields… the only defense I can say for him for his boring fight performance is that he was lucky Chad Dawson was fighting Glen Johnson. Who’s more boring – Shields or Dawson?
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 156 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Strikeforce 11/7 Chicago (Fedor/Rogers)
By Zach Arnold | November 7, 2009
Venue: Sears Centre Arena (Hoffman Estates, Illinois)
TV: CBS
- Welterweights (170 pounds): Christian Uflacker vs. Jonatas Novaes
- Middleweights (185 pounds): Louis Taylor vs. Nate Moore
- Welterweights (185 pounds): Shamar Bailey vs. John Kolosci
- Lightweights (155 pounds): Mark Miller vs. Deray Davis
- Featherweights (145 pounds): Jeff Curran vs. Dustin Neace
- Women (145 pounds): Roxanne Modafferi vs. Marloes Coenen
- Heavyweights: Antonio Silva vs. Fabricio Werdum
- Light Heavyweights (205 pounds): Gegard Mousasi vs. Sokoudjou
- Middleweights (185 pounds): Jake Shields vs. Jason “Mayhem” Miller
- Heavyweights: Brett Rogers vs. Fedor Emelianenko
Event coverage: Heavy | MMA Torch | Sherdog | Fanhouse | USA Today | Bloody Elbow | MMA Frenzy | MMA Junkie
Strikeforce/Showtime public relations staff sent out this notice during the Chicago event:
CHICAGO (Nov. 7, 2009) — The stakes will be high when STRIKEFORCE closes out a spectacular 2009 with the return of one of the most prolific and exciting fighters in Mixed Martial Arts – unbeaten former STRIKEFORCE world middleweight champion Cung Le, who will headline a star-studded lineup at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif. on Saturday, Dec. 19, on SHOWTIME®.
Joining the legendary Le (6-0) will be five other outstanding and widely recognized 185-pound stalwarts, Scott “Hands Of Steel’’ Smith (16-6), “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler (16-5), Matt “The Law” Lindland (21-6) and highly regarded STRIKEFORCE newcomers Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza (10-2) and Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal (5-0), who will be making their respective highly anticipated debuts for the organization. Souza will face Lindland. Opponents for Lawler and “King Mo’’ will be announced soon.
A special pre-sale ticket purchase opportunity will take place for “STRIKEFORCE Insider” e-newsletter subscribers (www.strikeforce.com) beginning at 10:00 AM, PT Tuesday, Nov. 10, and ending at 10 PM, PT on Thursday, Nov. 12. ”STRIKEFORCE Insiders” will receive a special e-newsletter today with the pre-sale code.
Tickets, priced from $30, go on sale to the general public at 10:00 AM, PT on Friday, Nov. 13 at the HP Pavilion ticket office as well as at all Ticketmaster locations (800-745-3000), Ticketmaster online (www.ticketmaster.com) and STRIKEFORCE’S official website (www.strikeforce.com).
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TV ratings news for the event.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 197 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Transcript of CBS Executive Kelly Kahl’s interview with Fanhouse
By Zach Arnold | November 6, 2009
INTERVIEWER: “Kelly, we’re just a couple of days away now from a huge event on CBS. I want to ask you an interesting question, um, October 4th, 2008, obviously that was the last CBS event uh, MMA event on CBS, Kimbo Slice-Seth Petruzelli, after everything that went on on that night, did you ever think that we’d see MMA back on CBS?”
KELLY KAHL: “Yeah, we always hoped we would. Uh, it was a tough night and um you know obviously not the way we’d hope it would go, although that being said we still got a pretty good audience there. But when Elite went down, we kind of began the process of you know trying to get back on but we had to find the right partner first and I think we’ve found it with Strikeforce.”
INTERVIEWER: “And when this fight was first announced, um, I guess the rumors or it was pretty much known that it was going to air on Showtime. How did it end up airing on CBS?”
KELLY KAHL: “Well, we essentially have a partnership with Showtime, they’re part of CBS, and obviously with uh Strikeforce so we’re all talking all the time and um I think when it became apparent that we could get Fedor uh we just collectively decided it would make you know a great way for CBS to get back into MMA uh in prime-time.”
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Transcript of Scott Coker interview with Fanhouse
By Zach Arnold | November 6, 2009
INTERVIEWER: “Scott, now we are just I guess 72 hours away from the biggest event that you’ve ever promoted. Is that correct?”
SCOTT COKER: “Yeah, absolutely, I mean you know to be on CBS, it’s uh you know a lot of eyeballs and you know we’re looking forward to it.”
INTERVIEWER: “Back page of the Chicago Sun-Times, USA Today, you’re all over the local news, are you happy with the buzz that this fight has created?”
SCOTT COKER: “Yeah, absolutely, I think that you know if you look at the paper uh today and then I think the USA Today has something in there as well and you know we’re hoping to finish strong for the rest of the week.”
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |